


Tango no Sekku

by Minni



Category: Naruto
Genre: Complete, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 11:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minni/pseuds/Minni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May 5th. Boys’ Day. A holiday in which families celebrates the happiness and health of their sons. And Naruto, who is a son without parents, makes his own celebration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tango no Sekku

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted 7/17/07 at fanfiction.net. I then realized - today is May Fifth. It's a story about May Fifth. This is the perfect opportunity to post Tango no Sekku!

Naruto was six years old on the first Boys’ Day he ever remembered celebrating.

Konoha was decorated with brightly colored paper carp streamers, large and small, that were mounted on large pinwheels for Boys’ Day. Families proudly set up displays in their households for all the guests to see, and the young sons beamed with great pride as they dressed in their finest silks.

One boy, an orphan who was no one’s son, who had no display for the guests who never visited, whose finest was a yellow shirt with a black smiley face, refused to be left out of the celebration. So he made his own decorations.

Using a makeshift ladder constructed of three buckets, one box, and a lopsided stool, Naruto managed to mount his own paper carp streamer over his doorway, though it looked more like an eel with an unfortunate defect than it did a carp. His pinwheel looked only slightly better, having been jury-rigged out of two drinking straws, eight toothpicks, and three large leaves he filched from the Yamanaka flowershop.

When Inuzuka Kiba pointed and laughed at the admittedly pitiful display, Naruto punched him and scraped his knuckle bloody on one fang. The resulting tussle was broken up when Inuzuka Tsume dumped a bucket of water upon them and then yanked them apart by the scruffs of their necks.

“That is enough squabbling!” Tsume snarled. She fell silent at Naruto’s stubborn expression, took in the bruised pride and deflated happiness, and gently released him. And then snatched him by the elbow when he tried to flee. “Apologize,” she told Kiba firmly.

Kiba pouted, dug a toe into the dirt, but did as he was told when he received another scary glare.

Tsume gave Naruto some pennies, ruffled his wet hair, and dabbed away the blood that trickled from a split lip. “ _I_ ,” she said with a smile that took Naruto’s breath away, “think it’s clever and wonderful. Any parent would be proud of your skill.”

Naruto wistfully watched Tsume and Kiba leave, her pennies tightly clutched in his fist. Tsume’s hand settled upon Kiba’s head and he leaned towards her, his shoulder bumping against her hip. When they were nearly out of sight, Kiba tentatively reached up and gripped his mother’s hand.

Naruto opened his fist and stared at the pennies, then cast a gloomy look at the little apartment that was his – a home that was cleaned three times a week by an elderly widow who was deaf and half-blind, his meals prepared at the same time. A home that only _he_ would see the inside of this day because the widow was visiting her grandsons with rice cakes and sweet bean paste.

Naruto had a two day-old casserole somewhere in his fridge.

He looked down at the pennies again, which he rarely saw and thus couldn’t know their true worth. He turned his back to the empty home that contained a son, but no father, no display, and no guests. He left behind a trail of wet footprints.

Naruto kept his eyes cast down where he couldn’t see the streamers, the ribbons, and the pinwheels - the hateful stares or the angry glares of people whom he was sure he had never before met. He couldn’t close his ears to the greetings, the congratulations, the calls and the compliments – or the hisses of anger when he strayed too close to the festivities. He couldn’t close his nose to the rice, the sweet bean paste, the bamboo leaves, and seasoned ramen… Ramen? His stomach growled.

“Oooh, Papa, why do we bother? No one’s going to come on a holiday.”

“Ah, but as I have a daughter rather than a son, _we_ don’t need to eat kashine-mochi. Besides, never underestimate the power of customer loyalty! Now hush up and hand me the sieve, Ayame-chan.”

Naruto peeked around the corner. The Ichiraku Ramen was decorated with ribbons and pinwheels, but no carps. There was a man facing the grill with his back towards Naruto, and his daughter, just tall enough to see over the counter, stood at his side. Naruto carefully and quietly approached the stand, clenched his pennies tight in one fist, and then resolutely pulled himself up on a stool.

He waited a moment for them to take notice, and then banged the counter impatiently. “Old man! Old man!” he called. The father turned with his face scrunched up in irritation; his daughter turned with him, her own face filled with curiosity.

Upon seeing Naruto, the father planted his hands flat on the counter and smiled brightly. “See here! A customer!” he said to Ayame. “I told you someone would come.”

“But Papa-”

“Tut tut, there is service to render.” The father leaned towards Naruto, the smile still firmly in place. “What can I get for you this fine day?”

Naruto opened his hand and very carefully laid out his precious pennies. One, two, three, f-four, and, uh, five (he was sure that was right) shiny little pennies. He slid them across the table. “Miso,” he said firmly, because it was the first flavor that came to his mind.

“That’s not enough,” Ayame blurted.

Naruto went very still.

Her father dropped a heavy hand on Ayame’s shoulder. “Now, now, Ayame-chan,” he said softly, “miso is today’s special for the holiday.” She looked surprised. Then he reached down, slid two shiny pennies back to Naruto, and palmed the other three. “I told you we would get business this day.”

“But-”

“Get the noodles, now!” Ayame jumped to obey her father’s orders, and Naruto carefully gathered his two remaining pennies close and tucked them in his pocket.

His supper for Boys’ Day wasn’t a rice cake with a sweet bean paste, all wrapped up in bamboo leaves. His home didn’t have a display for guests who would never come. Naruto was a son without a father, a child without a mother.

But with the two shiny pennies in his pocket, a large bowl of hot miso ramen, and a friendly man who smiled without malice, Naruto celebrated.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally supposed to be based off the of Shichi-Go-San holiday, but I couldn't find enough information on it even though I really liked the idea of Naruto dressing himself all up in his hakama and taking himself to the temple (unsure if they have in his world, though, see) and getting himself candy because no one else would, although the Third would have absently handed him some pennies... But it also was based on samurai class, and I didn't think it fit so well with ninjas. =(
> 
> And then someone of Naruto's age would have to make fun of him, and then I got this image of Naruto's kicked-puppy expression, and then Tsume came along to cuddle him because, well, it was a kicked puppy expression! And then I figured that Mr. Ichiraku wouldn't mind having a son-for-a-day on a day for sons, and the story went from there.


End file.
